Evil
by Lamashtar
Summary: After Wolverine is killed in action, Jean suspects who really murdered him.


Evil  
Author: Lamashtar (Lamashtar@aol.com, Althea6302@aol.com)  
Setting: X-Men Movieverse (a little AU; see Notes)  
Rating: PG13 horrorfic  
Disclaimer: Well, they originally belonged to Marvel and Stan Lee. This alternate reality also belongs to Twentieth Century and Bryan Singer and co. I do not own anything but way I put the words together. And Stan said we could do that.  
Pairing: Scott/Jean, (slight Logan/Rogue, slight Rogue/Remy)  
Notes: I got the bug for this story after the umpteenth Logan/Rogue story that had Cyclops acting like a mean jerk dedicated to preventing the destined romance that is Logan/Rogue. In my opinion, if Cyke were truly that mean jerk, well, he'd be a much more effective bad guy than he's been portrayed. Either that, or warning Logan away from Rogue is a cunning plot to divert him from Jean... This was supposed to be about What If Cyclops was a bad guy interested in preventing Logan/Rogue's relationship.  
Summary: The lengths Scott and Jean are willing to go to to protect their love and the Dream. Jean's POV  
Feedback: I'm always willing to listen.  
Archive: Ask.  
Warning: Character death and premeditated murder alluded to, an engaged couple in the same bed (whoop!whoop!)  
Song 'Murder by Numbers' is by the Police  
  
I've been afraid of Scott, lately.  
  
I've been sitting here, in my office, staring at the computer screen. The rest of the room is dark.   
  
A dark room for dark thoughts.   
  
If I follow that metaphor, the light of the computer screen is my salvation. They say the truth will set you free. But this truth-my truth-could destroy everything we've worked for.  
  
The files I've been staring at, the mission report and Logan's autopsy, have blurred into meaningless squiggles. They are orderly and efficient, blandly perfect, even innocuous on their surface. They hide a well of darkness beneath.   
  
Like the man, too, I wonder?  
  
The leather chair creaks when I stretch, startling me. I hadn't realized it was so late. The medlab has been dead quiet for hours now. The silence makes me feel like I'm the only one in the mansion. The only one awake for miles.   
  
With a sigh, I lean forward in my chair again, straining to read the reports one more time. Scott has always insisted on finishing the after operations debriefings immediately, so everyone's impressions will be as fresh as possible. What I'm looking at isn't so much as a bloody fingerprint, but an absence. A vagueness hiding in between those meticulous, obscuring terms of 'unexpected resistance' and 'casualties'.   
  
As if 'dead' wasn't exact enough. As if any of the important things were in there.  
  
It doesn't say Rogue is alive because Logan gave up his life for her. It doesn't say that he died in her arms of his own wounds after giving her his own healing factor to survive.   
  
Rogue blames herself for it. Well, herself and Magneto. They were trapped when the metal girder gave way in an abandoned warehouse and who else had the ability to do that?   
  
She doesn't know you like I do. How you've studied the structural weaknesses of vehicles and structures, to know just the right place to hit a car's tank to make it explode or the calculations World War II engineers would make to collapse a bridge's integrity to bring it down. Or how you can figure trajectories and angles in an eyeblink to shoot pool or bring down the support struts of an unsafe building in just such a way to trap two injured people, until it was too late.  
  
I'm sure there were risks. But you've never backed down from those, have you? Probabilities are another of your talents; calculating the odds and making the cold equations that decide who lives and who dies. And Logan wasn't a team player.  
  
No, Rogue is overwhelmed with grief and guilt and a rage you've effectively channeled by sending her on a follow-up mission against the Brotherhood. She's using Logan's method of coping by becoming an action junkie. The abilities she absorbed from him may never fade away. Did you count on that too? I remember discussing the possibility with you that Rogue's power could reach that extreme. Waste not, want not, after all.  
  
Now you've partnered her with Gambit. He makes a charming distraction, doesn't he? Suave and sophisticated enough to stand apart from the boys, he has a reckless wildness that reminds her of Logan. He can't help but be fascinated by her untouchable, budding sexuality. The ultimate score for the master thief.  
  
I was in shock when I first began to suspect.   
  
You held me in your arms while I cried, for the empty look in Rogue's eyes and the peace that was so wrong in his. I tried to reach out for your thoughts, to share our pain and strength together.   
  
But you closed your mind off, gently stroking my hair in apology.  
  
"Not right now, Jean."  
  
I stared up at your face, which was blank of all expression. "But Scott-"  
  
You kissed my forehead. I should have felt something leak through your shields. Touch strengthens telepathy and our minds mesh better than most. But I didn't feel anything from you.  
  
"It's all right, Jean. I'll take care of everything."  
  
That was the missing piece, the absence that should have been there. You had no guilt. Cyclops, the control freak, took responsibility for everything at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. But the one thing you didn't feel guilty for, was the one thing you were guilty of.  
  
I haven't said anything yet. We haven't discussed the mission at all, though you've made your verbal report to Charles.   
  
Doesn't he see? His telepathy far outstrips mine, he should have read the murderous intentions in your thoughts before you ever left on that mission! Are my suspicions so wrong?   
  
My mind wrenches between the conclusions, unable to accept any of them. You've been trained by the world's premier telepath to control your thoughts, both for your protection and my sanity. Charles trusts you like a son. He would never consider prying into your thoughts, outside an emergency.   
  
That day, you were somber, but cool. Efficient. In control.   
  
Cyclops would never kill out of anger. He wouldn't like losing control that much. No, if you were to murder, it would be a cold, rational, logical decision. It would be planned out. What did you plan to do about the telepaths, Scott? What is your contingency plan for me?  
  
A choked laugh escapes me and I clench my eyes shut. The lyrics to an old Police song go through my mind.  
  
Once that you've decided on a killing  
First you make a stone of your heart  
  
I'm stalling.  
  
There's only one way I can be sure.  
  
But the prospect of going to you now...  
  
I reach out and close the file, turn off the computer. The darkness is complete.  
  
My heels echo too loud as I exit the lab. I can't help but stop, and check behind me. Nothing there but shadows.  
  
What did you think, Jean, that he would be waiting in ambush for you?  
  
I flick off the remaining lights on my way up, using memory and touch to find my way. Pausing for a long minute outside the door to our room. Quietly, quiet as a mouse, I ease it open and step inside.   
  
I strain to see your form lying on the bed.   
  
My shoes slip off soundlessly. I don't breathe as I walk carefully to the bedside and kneel.   
  
Why would you do it? Was Logan so dangerous to your dreams? Did you calculate his unknown factor and see him better removed altogether? Did he drive so deep a wedge between you and me, that you feared him disrupting all our lives with his influence?  
  
Did you do it?  
  
My hand is almost on your head when you speak quietly.  
  
"Coming to bed?"  
  
I can feel your eyes on me behind the opaque goggles. Never have I wished or feared more to see your eyes. I have to know.  
  
I touch you. There is a moment of nothing, then-a tendril of love, like warm sunlight, seeps into my fingers. I close my eyes to let it flow through me.  
  
I don't look at anything else.  
  
Your arms draw me down to you and enfold my head into the safety of your chest. And I let sleep come at last.  
  
  
'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' Edmund Burke 


End file.
